Three vie for Latah County sheriff

The three candidates running for Latah County sheriff share similar goals and are hoping voters believe they are the right person to achieve them.

Sheriff Richard Skiles, 59, is seeking a third term in office. He is being challenged by former Moscow Police Chief James Fry, 55, and former Idaho State Police trooper Christopher Middleton, 55. Skiles is running as a Republican while Fry and Middleton are running as Independents.

Whoever is elected will immediately be asked to make decisions about the future of the county’s 51-year-old jail located in the basement of the courthouse.

A recent Moscow Volunteer Fire Department inspection of the aging jail pushed the county into looking at the expensive cost of fixing the facility or, possibly, building a new one.

The Moscow City Council on Monday criticized the county for considering closing the jail without having a conversation with the city first. If the jail is closed, Moscow police officers would be forced to travel to Lewiston every time an inmate is booked in jail, which officials say will make it more difficult to patrol the city and will add financial costs to the budget. The city council also criticized the county for misleading the public about how extensive the facility’s deficiencies were.

Skiles told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News in an interview this week that he wants to remain in office to fix the jail issue.

“I don’t want to leave in the middle of a mess with the jail until we get it fixed or get something done,” he said. “That’s something that wouldn’t be great for somebody else to inherit — I want to fix it.”

He said the challenge will be to find the money to pay for fixing the jail or building a new facility. Skiles said passing a bond or a local option sales tax are pathways to finding that revenue.

In the meantime, he said, he wants to fix enough of the jail to keep it operating until a bond or sales tax is passed.

Skiles heard the councilor’s comments and said the city should have been more involved in the conversation. He is also open to having more meetings about the issue and keeping the jail operating as long as possible

“We’re growing and we probably need to figure out a way to keep the jail open and maintained,” he said. “Even if it’s temporarily closing it while we get stuff fixed.”

Fry, who attended Monday’s city council meeting, told the Daily News this is a problem that should have been alleviated sooner. He said the aging jail has been a concern for years.

“Now all of sudden we’re in a crisis situation where we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Fry said.

He noted there were millions of dollars in American Rescue Plan Act funds that could have been directed toward the jail.

Fry said he would work to be more proactive about addressing major problems like the jail if elected.

Middleton took a similar stance, saying the county should have been more prepared to find a solution for a facility that has been failing for decades.

“(Skiles is) getting punched in the face with something he should have been prepared for regardless of whether he passed an inspection,” Middleton said.

Beyond the jail issue, Middleton, Fry and Skiles share similar goals. For example, all three would like the county to have a drug-sniffing dog, which needs to be approved by the county commissioners.

Skiles has been pushing for a K9 for years and said it will continue to be a priority for him.

Fry said he went to the city council repeatedly to get approval for a Moscow police drug-sniffing dog until the Moscow Police Department welcomed its new K9 in 2022. Fry said Bennett Lumber helped cover the cost of purchasing the dog.

Fry said he plans to again partner with businesses and people in the community to finance a K9 for the county.

“I haven’t seen any movement with a drug dog in the county, which I think is very important,” he said. “I think we need to be fighting the fentanyl, heroin problem that we do have.”

Middleton said getting a drug dog is a priority of his as well, although he cautioned that it will have to take a backseat to addressing the jail’s needs first.

All three candidates highlighted the importance of having school resource officers in Latah County’s schools.

Middleton said he used to serve as a SRO when he was a Latah County deputy. He said it is a valuable crime prevention tool that helps steer students away from drugs or alcohol.

Skiles said there was no school resource officer working for the county when he was first elected, and he was able to get the county commissioner’s approval for a full-time SRO.

Another one of his deputies was recently assigned to be the SRO at Genesee Joint School District, but Fry and Middleton emphasized that it was the school district that attained the grant to fund this position, not the county.

Fry and Skiles both said they want the county’s part-time forensic investigator to be a full-time position. This detective investigates internet crimes, including those against children, and Skiles is hopeful his deputy will be able to spend more time in that role.

“Hopefully I can make that a full-time position, maybe in the next budget or two,” he said.

Fry, too, said a part-time detective is not enough.

“That’s not a job you can do part-time,” Fry said. “It’s a full-time position. It’s too busy.”

Middleton said the sheriff’s office needs to be more involved in local communities, and he wants deputies to attend school board and city council meetings on a regular basis. He said this not only benefits the communities, but it teaches the sheriff’s staff how to be better leaders.

Fry said he has heard people in local communities say they are not seeing deputies around their town enough. Skiles noted that he increased the number of deputies on staff after he was elected so the county could have 24-hour coverage.

Middleton said it is the sheriff’s job to protect everyone’s constitutional rights. He brought up the 2020 incident in Moscow when members of Christ Church were arrested for not wearing masks during a psalm sing event. The city of Moscow was sued by those church members and was eventually ordered to pay a settlement.

Middleton said those arrests violated the demonstrators’ rights. Middleton said he wore a mask as a state trooper because it was ISP policy, but he would not enforce mask use.

“We live in America,” he said. “We don’t live in Russia, we don’t live in China, we don’t live in these places where people’s rights are taken away from them.”

Skiles said his staff have done “a lot of good things” since he was elected and he is running to continue that work.

Fry said he was asked to run for sheriff and he touted his 29 years of law enforcement experience and his training from the FBI National Academy.

Middleton said it was always his plan to run for sheriff, and he draws upon his experience as a Latah County deputy and Idaho State Police trooper.

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.